LOVE

I'm not sure if it was Valentines Day or the heart themed treasures we found on the beach or just the Spirit of God moving in my heart and mind, but ever since we got home from Baja, I have had all things love on my mind. Something about the whale experience was so deeply moving to me. It felt incredibly special and unique. I came home with the feeling that I was incredibly special and unique somehow because of it. It also caused this passage from 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 to echo in my mind:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes,what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There is also Mark 12:30-31

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

I do not practice this. I do not understand this. I do not even believe this deeply enough. And something about that whale experience really brought that home to me. None of it matters. You can pet whales, you can climb the highest mountain, accomplish your every dream and goal but if you have not love then what does it matter? None of it matters. All that matters is love...how I long to really live in that truth.

There are a couple of songs that have also resounded in my heart these past few weeks.

One of them is from one of my favorite artists Brett Dennen called "Don't Mess with Karma", not so much the Karma aspect of the song but the idea that "Love is all you came here for" and isn't that so true? We are here to Love. Love God and one another. I am ashamed that I loose sight of this so quickly and so easily, daily, and in each moment of the day.

This is a video of BD singing the song. I'm bummed it won't work on the iPhone, but thankful it works on my desktop.

The other is by a local female artist whom I don't know the name of and I can't figure out a way to place the song on here from my iTunes file. We listened to it down in Baja quite a bit. I don't want to spoil it by trying to describe it. I'm gonna keep trying to find it online and will perhaps place it here when I figure out how.